Friday, February 27, 2015

SquareOne, Joey's Challenge, and It's a String Thing

First off, here's my tile for Square One: Purely Zentangle
Strircles, a tangle I'd never done before. 
It's definitely one I would do again.

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Next up is my tile for Joey's Challenge #49: Stacking Blocks of Tangles: One block, on top of Two, on top of Three; each tangled with a different pattern:
This was similar to last week's challenge: 
tangle a group of circles; none overlapping.
They were both fun to do.
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 And here's It's a String Thing #81, using String #82, by Judy Palumbo
 
and CZT Lynn Mead's Fassett and Phroz

Once I got started on this tile, I discovered that even though Fassett and Phroz start out differently, in the end result, you can't tell which is which. At least on my tile you can't. And once I finished, when I checked Adele Bruno's site, I realized that she had used Fassett for a challenge once before, and I used a gray tile then as well. You may also notice that I squared off the string. I played around with  these tangles quite a bit, and every time the results were totally different.
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Be sure to check out Square One, Joey's Weekly Tangle Challenge, and It's a String Thing, to see the other entries, all of which are amazing. Perhaps you'll be inspired to try them yourself.

Saturday, February 21, 2015

This Week's Challenges, sort of

This first tile is actually last week's SquareOne challenge: Huggins. I did the Huggins part fairly quickly, but then couldn't decide what to put in the corners. It seemed a little bare without something; so I kept playing around with ideas until I came up with Diva Dance/Waltz. I liked it, so I added it to my tile. But now I'm not so sure. Anyway, here it is:
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The second tile is Joey's Weekly Tangle Challenge #48; she calls it the Polka Dot Tangle. Draw some circles, don't overlap, and fill each circle with a different tangle. Pretty straightforward.
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Then there's the Diva's Challenge #205: incorporate the Chinese New Year into the tile. 2015 is the Year of the Goat; and after looking for images online. I discovered a multitude: some of goats and some of the Chinese symbol for Year of the Goat. I decided to go with the latter. My first attempt produced this:
 I'm not very happy with this; it's really slipshod. So if I can come up with something better before the day is over, I will edit this post and add it.
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Last minute addition: for That String Thing #80:

 The patterns to use were supposed to be Kozy and Inaura. Try as I might, I could not get them to work together, so here's a monotangle of Inaura:
 


Meanwhile, be sure to check out SquareOne, madebyjoey, iamthediva, and It'saStringThing, for all the other entries; it's amazing how different all the responses are. Maybe you'll be inspired to try out one of the Challenges yourself.
 

Saturday, February 14, 2015

Zendala Dare #96 & Diva's Challenge #204

This week I've combined the Diva's Challenge #204, a Valentangle, and Zendala Dare #96. 
This is the first Zendala Dare in a long while. Welcome back, Erin (the Bright Owl).

This is Erin's template for the Zendala Dare:

And this is  what I originally did with it:
The use of the Heart tangles made me think that it would also work for the Diva's Challenge, which was to create a Valentangle. The only guidelines were  to get in the Valentine spirit; Use a heart string, use heart tangles, or use red, white and/or pink. I tried adding red or pink, but it just didn't work.
So I removed the black vignette around it, and Voila! 
This one works for the Diva's Challenge
 That's all I was able to do this week; I keep hoping to do more, but something always gets in the way. Two weeks ago I had laser surgery on my left eye; and, Hurray! it cleared up some of the visual problems I had been having. But then last week I tripped in the parking lot of a store which shall remain nameless. And while, luckily, I didn't break anything; I bruised my right arm and left leg, and got a few scrapes, to boot. While it didn't completely incapacitate me, it really knocked the wind out of my sails. And I still can't lift right my arm very high, and have very little strength in it. After a few days, it turned quite purple;
Of course, as a number of people have pointed out, Purple IS my color, so I shouldn't complain.
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Be sure to visit the the Bright Owl's site; as well as the Diva's, to see the other wonderful entries, and maybe try out one of the Zendala Dares or Diva's Challenges yourself.

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Well, Revisited. 2015

At one time, Well was one of my favorite go-to patterns. And I did a few tiles with multiple variations. This week it is the tangle of the week in Square One:Purely Zentangle, and I decided to to do another monotangle using multiple tangleations.  I was quite happy with the results, until I realized that one section was kind of off, and when I tried to fix it, it ended up rather sloppy. At first I was going to start over, but I know that doing so would not necessarily come out better, just different. So in the true Zentangle spirit, I am posting my first, unadulterated try. If I get a chance, I will try another, totally different one, which hopefully will improve on this one.
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Last week's Square One featured Quandary, a tangle I have a Love/Hate relationship with. Sometimes it works out well for me, and sometimes I struggle with it. This tile falls somewhere in between.
Be sure to check out SquareOne; Sticking to the basics results in some beautiful work.